A non-partisan political blog for people who care about Israel and want an end to the Arab-Muslim war against the Jews in the Middle East. Michael Lumish, PhD, editor. - mike.lumish@gmail.com - Doodad, Oldschooltwentysix, JayinPhiladelphia, Empress Trudy, Geoffff, and Sar Shalom Contributors.

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Sunday, October 16, 2011

One of the things that continues to sicken me about the progressive-left as a movement is in the way that they perpetually spit the most vile hatred at their perceived political enemies, even as they consider themselves to be ethical and pure. It is the very height of hypocrisy, of course, but this is hardly surprising coming from today's left. We are, after all, talking about people who actually blamed Sarah Palin for the Giffords shooting in Tucson.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has, like pretty much everything that comes out of the left, an anti-Semitic element within it. In a brief Politico article Bill Kristol writes:

“It’s not surprising that elements of the modern left are anti-Semitic," said ECI chairman William Kristol in a statement. "It is surprising that respectable liberals have praised the protesters while ignoring the anti-Semitism. Liberals have pretended to see nothing hateful and hear nothing hateful, and therefore have said nothing to rebuke their allies. Will they now speak up?”

Kristol is, of course, correct. "Elements of the modern left are anti-Semitic." Would anyone at this late date deny this? Of course elements of the modern left are anti-Semitic however Kristol is wrong when he suggests that liberals pretend to see nothing hateful.

Having spent much of the last 30 years, or thereabouts, among self-proclaimed liberals and progressives, I believe that I can state with some authority that they do not pretend to see nothing hateful, but simply refuse to see or acknowledge their own seething hatred.

They are not pretending, however. They are simply unreflective.

They are very quick to point out perceived hatred coming from Republicans and they are very, very quick to spit hatred at those Republicans. What liberals are not very good about is, however, self-scrutiny. They seem incapable of even modest levels of reflection. If they partook of such reflection they might draw a number of conclusions.

One conclusion that they might come to is that their own movement is just crawling with people who are highly racist against Arabs and Muslims. Another conclusion that they might come to is that the progressive-movement has made of itself a home to anti-Semitic anti-Zionists and has thus become hostile territory to Jews who self-identify as Jews and who care about the Jewish state. Furthermore, if the left showed even the least little bit of self-reflection, they might conclude that spitting shear hatred at the Bill Kristols of the world... the Sarah Palins, the Michelle Bachmann's, the Glenn Becks, the Sean Hannitys, the Ann Coulters, the Rush Limbaughs... and on and on and on... does not reflect very well on a political movement that claims to represent compassion.

It's rather difficult to convince people that you represent compassion, even as you spit hatred.

Here, let me give you some examples from a recent hate-filled Kossack diary defaming Kristol for standing up for the Jews.

This progressive thinks that Kristol is up to some evil plot:

This is beyond buffoonery, this is deliberate and calculated. Never accuse someone of being a buffoon unless that is the obvious reason for their behavior. There is far more going on here than can be explained by the term buffoon ...

Ah, yes, the devious Kristol is up to something shady. It's all about protecting Israel from even a breath of criticism according to NY brit expat. It simply can't be that Kristol is correct and that Democratic leaders are ignoring expressions of anti-Semitism within their own movement.

Which, of course, is exactly the case.

They are going to label anybody (6+ / 0-)

who objects to the policies and practices of the State of Israel as being anti-Semitic.

OK, look at this video and tell me where anyone is discussing the policies of the state of Israel.

Bill Kristol is a warmongering ass who's wrong all the time. Fuck him and the New American Century he rode in on.

Such compassionate introspection.

In such comments on Daily Kos and throughout the progressive-left blogosphere one easily discerns the disconnect between the claims of compassionate liberalism and the actual hatred that liberals spew.

Anyways, let me say again, that the progressive-left is actually not nearly so anti-Semitic as it is anti-Arab and anti-Muslim as evidenced by the fact that they tend to treat Arabs and Muslims like little children. It's an imperialist form of racism that goes to the 18th and 19th centuries.

Too bad that they refuse to look in the mirror.

Update:

In the comments Dan Bielak has stated, correctly in my opinion, that it is not progressive-left racist condescension against Arabs and Muslims, but in favor of Arabs and Muslims.

He actually makes an interesting point. The left sees itself as "anti-racist" and theoretically proclaims friendship with those whom they perceive as living under oppression, which would, needless to say, include many, many Arabs and Muslims. Of course, theoretical proclamations of friendship don't mean a whole lot when the movement, in actuality, ignores Muslim violence and the genocides in Darfur and the Congo.

In any case, the left remains entirely racist toward Arabs and Muslims, but it is a pro-Arab and pro-Muslim form of racist condescension.

I do not really know what to make of that fact, but it is a fact and Dan is correct.

Second Update:

This comment is just too good not to highlight:

If Bill Kristol didn't hate America (0+ / 0-)

he'd downplay this. But no - he wants trouble.

Fight until we win. Then we can begin arguing about the details. - Kwickkick (RIP) 2009

by RickMassimo on Sun Oct 16, 2011 at 02:58:57 PM PDT

So for a Jew to point out anti-Semitism on the progressive-left is to hate America!

14 comments:

When Meir Kahane would speak on college campuses, he would state that he does not hate Arabs and that he has much respect for Arabs.

When karmafish complains about anti-Arab or anti-Muslim racism, it has a very similar ring to it.

It is no surprise that right-wingers like karmafish, Bill Kristol, and others are desperately trying to discredit protests like occupy wall street. They realize that these protests have the potential to galvanize opposition to their extreme right-wing agenda.

The author of the diary first alibis his "fellow travelers on the left,"

" because they are antisemitic, but because they view the Palestinians as an oppressed people and Israel as an aggressive imperialist force that serially violates human rights."

IOW they have a reason to act they way they do even if it freaking antisemitic.

The general consensus is that there is no problem with OWS because it was only a little bit of antisemitism. So naturally they will hate it when a right winger reminds them that they tolerate it. Easier than dissing their comrades.

There is a difference in fighting for the oppressed and believing the oppressed are incapable of not being racist and must be excused. The latter is racism, even if based on benevolence.

There is also the question of whether the failure to speak out against Arab/Muslim racism is due to the racist view of alleged deficiencies, or because people are afraid of a violent reaction and remain silent even if they acknowledge the racism of Arabs/Muslims directed at Jews and non-Muslims.

The final question to ask about all this is why there exists no diary at dKos decrying even a small amount of antisemitism at OWS? What could it hurt to acknowledge that it isn't much but even that is too much and damages the cause?

" Helping found Israel was Truman's worst blunder. (1+ / 0-)Recommended by:bicycle Hussein paladinIf believing that makes me anti-Semitic, so be it. I'm also not a big fan of Spaniard depredations on the natives of the New World. Does that make me anti-Spain?

Israel was founded through theft and terrorism. Jabotinsky rationalized the thievery in 1923 when he offered his cockamamie morality for taking other people's land.

"Yet if homeless Jewry demands Palestine for itself it is "immoral" because it does not suit the native population. Such morality may be accepted among cannibals, but not in a civilised world. The soil does not belong to those who possess land in excess but to those who do not possess any. It is an act of simple justice to alienate part of their land from those nations who are numbered among the great landowners of the world, in order to provide a place of refuge for a homeless, wandering people. And if such a big landowning nation resists which is perfectly natural – it must be made to comply by compulsion."

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...

by OdinofAzgard on Sun Oct 16, 2011 at 04:40:10 PM PDT"

Yeah, OWS solidarity and right wing derangement syndrome is more important than crap like this I guess.

Antisemitism is an inconvenient truth for the left, doesn't fit into their worldview or victim profile- causes cognitive dissonance for them...uncomfortable, so they ignore it or discount it as some right wing conspiracy...any charge of anti-semitism is suspect now, as evidence of right wing allegiance. trouble is, the right are the only ones monitoring antisemitism.

"Suspect as right wing allegiance." Good catch. Nice little game they have going. Some of them actually argue there is no real antisemitism anymore. They are of course antisemites hoping to catch a break.

The Fundamental Argument:

The progressive movement, and the activist base of the Democratic Party, creates and supports venues that demonize and defame the Jewish state, thereby also creating hatred toward the Jewish people.

Such venues include political journals, such as, but not limited to, Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, and the UK Guardian, numerous universities throughout the United States and Europe, various NGOs with an anti-Israel agenda, and the entire progressive-left movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction (BDS) the Jewish people of the state of Israel.

These venues and organizations do not generally criticize Israel, but dehumanize that country.

For this reason, among others, the progressive movement, and the activist base of the Democratic Party, undermines the well-being and safety of Jews around the world, sometimes resulting in violence toward us.

Therefore, as a matter of common sense and basic human decency, Jews should leave the progressive movement and the Democratic Party as we seek to build alternative political structures that are not home to toxic anti-Semitic anti-Zionists, who would see us robbed of self-determination and self-defense.

What You Can't Discuss:

This is a partial list of taboo topics within progressive-left venues around the Arab-Israel conflict. You cannot discuss this material because it undermines the "Palestinian narrative" of perpetual victimhood. This narrative is a club used by the Arab and Muslim enemies of Israel, along with their western progressive allies, to delegitimize that country in preparation for its eventual dissolution.

1) The centuries of Jewish dhimmitude under the boot of Islamic imperialism.

2) The recent construction of Palestinian identity, its connection to Soviet Cold War politics, and how this is an Arab people with a Roman name that refers to Greeks.

3) Arab and Palestinian Koranically-based racism as the fundamental source of the conflict.

4) The ways in which contemporary progressive anti-Zionism serves as a cloak for gross anti-Semitism.

5) The Palestinian theft and appropriation of Jewish history.

6) "Pallywood."

7) The historical connections between the Nazis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Palestinian national movement.

8) The perpetual refusal of the Palestinian-Arabs to accept a state for themselves in peace next to the Jewish one.

9) The progressive portrayal of terrorists as those fighting a righteous war of "resistance."

10) The Arab-Palestinian indoctrination of children with Jew hatred.

11) Human rights violations against women, children, and Gay people in the Muslim Middle East.

12) The fact that violent Jihadis call themselves "Jihadis" and claim to love death above life.

This is only a partial list, so please let us know the many more that we are missing.

Barack Obama on the so-called "Arab Spring" (May 19, 2011):

"There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat."

The "Arab Spring" is the rise of radical Islam in the Middle East and this is what Obama compares the Civil Rights Movement to? How's that for a kick in the head to Martin Luther King, Jr.?